Belmar rebuilds dunes to prepare for nor'easter

Nov. 6, 2012

Written by

Bill Bowman

@BillBowmanAPP

BELMAR — With a nor’easter due to blow in Wednesday afternoon, the borough is quickly rebuilding the sand dunes destroyed by Hurricane Sandy.

Mayor Matthew Doherty said crews started the work Tuesday morning. A bulldozer could be seen pushing beach sand into dunes late Tuesday afternoon.

“We’d rather be proactive than reactive,” he said.

The borough’s dunes, seen as a first defense against ocean flooding, were destroyed last week by the powerful hurricane, as were sand dunes throughout the Shore area.

“Other towns have called for evacuations, but we’re not,” Doherty said. “The rain and the wind will be a problem, but we think we’re OK with any storm surges.”

Doherty acknowledged that the replacement dunes are “being built quickly,” as opposed to the former dunes, which settled in over many years. But, he said, “we’re not expecting anything remotely close to what we had last week. This is just a little bit of insurance it case it gets hairy.”

Doherty said the borough is also pumping out its lakes and will continue to do so during the storm because the water table is high.

“We’re pumping out basements but the water is creeping back in because the water table is so high,” he said.

Doherty said the storm would put a crimp in the progress the borough has made in cleaning up after Sandy, but “it won’t stop our momentum in getting our town back.”